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WASHINGTON — Republicans scored a significant victory in a special congressional election Tuesday, holding on to a seat in a swing district in Florida that Democrats had high hopes of capturing after a campaign that focused heavily on President Barack Obama’s health care law.

With all precincts reporting, Republican David Jolly held a 3,400-vote margin over Democrat Alex Sink in the district, which stretches along the Gulf Coast north of St. Petersburg. The returns remain unofficial until final mail-in and provisional ballots can be counted, but Sink conceded defeat in a statement to supporters shortly after the polls closed.

The Republican and Democratic parties and allied groups spent more than $12 million on the brief campaign, according to disclosure reports compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s about six times the average full-year House campaign in 2012, and an apparent record for a special election.

The money financed a deluge of television ads, robo-calls and mailers, mostly centered on national issues, which largely seemed to drown out local concerns in the contest.

Both parties saw the special election as a good opportunity to try out campaign themes they hope to emphasize this fall.

Special elections “give a test bed of issues and how they play out,” National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) told reporters Tuesday before the votes were reported. “You can test messages, and you can test strategies, and you can test your theories on voter turnout and ID.”

The Republican theory in this case was that a heavy emphasis on Obamacare would motivate conservative voters to head to the polls, making up for Jolly’s drawbacks as a candidate, which included his current profession, Washington lobbyist, and his relative lack of money.

Although both sides cautioned in advance against over-interpreting the results of special elections, that Republican bet paid off. That’s bad news for Democrats and probably will set off a new round of nervousness among party strategists and office holders as they look ahead to the fall.